Pep Guardiola says Manchester City are yet to get back to their best but their emphatic win over West Ham on Saturday “will help”.
Erling Haaland scored his first brace since September as the Premier League champions beat the Hammers 4-1 to claim their second victory in a row.
West Ham right-back Vladimir Coufal deflected Savinho’s cross in for City’s opener and the Brazilian assisted Haaland for his 15th league goal of the campaign to give Guardiola’s side a 2-0 lead at half-time.
West Ham were wasteful in the first half and were made to pay when goals in the 55th (Haaland, assisted by Savinho again) and 58th minute (Phil Foden) put the game out of sight.
Niclas Fullkrug did grab a consolation goal for the Hammers as City failed to keep only a third home clean sheet in the Premier League this season.
City – who are sixth in the Premier League, two points behind fourth-place Chelsea – appear to have come out of their worst run under Guardiola but have some very tricky fixtures coming up.
“We won a game, still we are not at our best but winning will help us,” the Spaniard said. “We had good moments but I’ve been here eight years and we have seen the team playing and it is not at our standards.
“Still we have to find our tempo and the way we want to play. West Ham played good and had chances.
“No [we are not back in the groove]. It is happier to win but we are still not like we were for different reasons. The result will help. We struggle but it is a release.”
On Savinho, Guardiola added: “He made a lucky goal and made a good action after. The third goal was brilliant with the assist. He is delivering really well.
“He was brilliant. He is one of the few that is fresh. There were glimpses of brilliance. The work ethic was unbelievable but still not the composure. We accelerate everything. We have struggled with results recently but the last two victories is good and we did not lose for three. I would say a month and half [of poor form] compared with eight years is not bad.”
West Ham midfielder Tomas Soucek said Jarrod Bowen was a big miss as his side missed chances in the first half.
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“We are upset because we had a good chance to take the points from Manchester City,” he said. “Especially in the first half, I had a good chance and we had a few others and then we conceded a deflected goal.
“We tried to compete and we did but the result is not good.
“We have suffered a few big defeats. We have one way which we build in training, which we wanted to show. In many ways we did but we have to try not to concede goals.